Our first car (Resurrecting “The Answer”)

You've inspired me to get this idea in my kid's head...I'll need my daughter's buy in, but I'd love to learn the basics with her. She's 9 now, and bonding with her over a Miata project would be great.

I'm no pro, but know the basics of wrenching. A Miata in need of some TLC would be fun.

Way to go, Dad.

To those that are reading this post and dreaming of a raising a pit-crew. Not to douse the flames but to remind you that kids change as they  grow into themselves.

This was my daughter at about 12 years old. She used to like to come out to the shop and help dad with the Bugeye. She thought TIG welding was "kinda fun" and I would even let her weld some non-critical bits on the Bugeye. The MGB GT was "HER" car and I had plans of father daughter rallies like the Targa Newfoundland with her as the navigator.

A year later, her interest took her to other places and she has no interest in cars whatsoever to the point where at 23 she has not even bothered with a license.

This is not entirely a bad thing in that she has a pretty good grasp of what her dad is all about and both her and I know that she is capable of doing whatever  she WANTS to do.  She just decided that working on cars was not what she wanted to do.

So it was time well spent, I just wish it had lasted longer! Encourage, enable, but don't force.

In reply to NOHOME :

Amen!

Very cool project. Keep up the good work and post lots of pictures!

We decided to take the carpet out to give us better access to the rotted out floor. To get the carpet out  you have to take out the dash panel. According to the book we are using  "Removing the dash panel is a vary complex operation" and I agree. 

image by Phil Kingham, on Flickr

This is the front left seat mount.
Miata Maintenance by Phil Kingham, on Flickr

Here is the floor with the carpet out of the way. We are open to any and all suggestions for a solutions.  

Untitled by Phil Kingham, on Flickr

I would think a floor panel out of a wrecked Miata would be the way to go. Will have all the seat fittings in the right place. There are several companies that buy and part out wrecked Miatae. One that I've dealt with and had good experience with is The Parts Group. Used to be local to me but now located in Florida. He will ship. Also found several on Facebook Sales, not sure about them as never used them.

Never having done a floor replacement, I have a couple questions:

What to do with the structural box section under the floor?  If we use parts cut out of another car, should we be trying to keep the box stuff that's already in the car (it seems to not be rusty), or should that be part of what we're replacing?

I think I've seen mention of this elsewhere, but my thinking is that we could let new and old sheet metal overlap or we could make it fit closely and butt weld.  The former is not as nice but much easier.  What do you guys do?

We are trying to figure out what to do with the front seat mount sheetmetal.  As you can see in the last pic above, it's pretty damaged with rust.  We could fix it, but it would be much easier to replace it.

Does anyone know of a source for that part, new or used?  I haven't been able to find anything online.  Maybe I don't know what to call it.

We do know someone with some NB chassis from which we could get this part, but does anyone know if the NA and NB pieces are the same?

We are also in search of some other parts.  If anyone has any of the following parts they want to get rid of, let me know.

Driver's side seat rails

Driver's side seat belt

Black carpet

Black convertible top

Suspension springs (two are broken!)

I may have a full set of springs for an na. Need to check.

Ive got seat rails if nb rails will work.

Hell, I've got the majority of an nb tan interior....

Yours for shipping if you can use/i have

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

We bought seat rails on ebay already (probably should have waited )

Definitely interested in springs if you have them.

Nb seat belts usable by you?

Ill look around here for springs tomorrow after work 

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

It looks like the NB seatbelts don't work with the NA, at least not easily.  They are also available on ebay, so we can go that route if NA belts don't appear from somewhere else.

Thanks for looking at the springs.

Love this thread

I mentioned to my 11 year old son in law that I met two kids around his age who were rebuilding a Miata.  Now he says he wants to get an old car, fix it up, and go autocrossing when he's old enough.  This project is inspiring other kids

In reply to pkingham :

Phil, 

A few points....

1) you can use almost any seat track for an NA or NB

2) seat belts can be interchanged. Just the receiver mounting changes from tunnel mount to track mount.

3) I believe the cross member  (front of seat) is the same in NAs and NBs

4) you can use NB springs and tophats in an NA

5) carpet and soft tops should interchange, too. NB soft tops have glass window which requires a specific roll bar.

Any other stuff , you know where to find me.

In reply to BlueInGreen44 :

Awesome, more  people to compete with when I get older!!

We got some seat rails from E-bay.

we cleaned the rust off the floor of the car and coated the floor with red Eastwood rust encapsulator.

next we used a cad (cardboard aided design) template, some sheetmetal, a sheetmetal break/bender, a Sharpie, a belt sander, and a Eastwood beadroller to make a new floor piece.

My dad tacked the floor in. We used the weights to press the floor down because it warped in the beadrolling process.

an action shot I took.

Sorry about the pics. Mark will fix them tomorrow. It's bedtime now!

Pics work now. 

We finally finished the floor panel.  Still need to add seam sealer and paint.

so  we could move on to the other hole in the car. the hole was in the left side of the trunk where the tools go.

so i used cad (cardboard aided design), some sheet metal, a vice, and a hammer to make a patch.

My Dad welded the patch on.  It too needs sealer and paint.  At the same time we did a small rust repair at the back of the right side rocker.

This weekend we hope to pick up a front seat mount/crossmember so we don't have to completely reconstruct the rotted one.  

Here's the floor after the repair, sealing, and paint with a random red paint we had on hand.  The front seat mount we sourced through a local guy who parts out NB Miatas, and fortunately that's the same part as an NA.  We also rebuilt the shifter while we were in there.

Mom found some stuff to restore black plastic.  It made a huge difference on the center console.

We don't want the ashtray for it's original purpose, so we cut out the cover and refinished it with ruberized rust encapsulator.  At least in the picture, you can't see where I stuck my fingers into it before it was dry.

It seemed like forever since we pulled the dash (at my age, 4 months is a long time!) so it was great to get it back in.

Here we are making vroom vroom noises.  It's almost drivable.

It drives!  This is my dad driving.  It's still on the broken suspension springs, but we put a few miles on it to be sure it's all working.  

We still have a bunch of details to sort out like HVAC fan, cruise control, and a top that doesn't have big holes in it.  Since this pic, we have replaced the springs and shocks with stock, used NB stuff.  It feels fine, but it sure sits a bit high.

Nice work! I bet it was a cool feeling to see it run and drive after all the effort you guys have put into it.

In reply to mkingham :

Nicely done ! My Challenge car is sitting a little high on the stock sport suspension ,too. You're used to seeing it with the tired, saggy springs. Give it some time to settle, but you may want to go to some lowering springs sometime down the road. One thing at a time though. Patience Grasshopper. (ask your Dad to explain Grasshopper)

new favorite thread!